Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: TUESDAY, November 9, 1993 TAG: 9311090072
SECTION: NATL/INTL PAGE: A1 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: Knight-Ridder Newspapers
DATELINE: WASHINGTON LENGTH: Long
Perot, the populist showman, has taken to the airwaves, published a best-selling book and has been cheered at rallies across the country crammed with his United We Stand supporters.
Milliken, a South Carolina textile magnate, has been quietly working the levers of money, power and influence in Washington.
Through the network of Washington think tanks, academics and conservative politicians he supports financially, and through the hours of research he does, Milliken has set a major part of the anti-NAFTA agenda.
"Ross' style is very direct action. Roger's very much into information and shaping the debate," said Pat Choate, who runs the Milliken-backed Manufacturing Policy Institute, a Washington think tank. "Both are effective and both are important."
The same facts about the Mexican economy emerge in the speeches of Perot or Sen. Fritz Hollings, D-S.C., railing against NAFTA; in brochures put out by Ralph Nader's Public Citizen on why NAFTA is a bad deal; and in the position papers of such diverse groups as textile workers' unions and the Republican Research Committee, a conservative group run by Milliken-supported Rep. Duncan Hunter, R-Calif. This is Milliken at work.
"I've done all that I could do in being willing to talk to people and to spread factual data that I get from exhaustive reading - I probably read three hours a day on this," Milliken said in a rare interview. "I've always believed that when people understood the situation, that they'd make intelligent decisions."
Milliken's key themes:
Twenty-seven wealthy families control 55 percent of Mexico's gross domestic product as well as the political process.
Most of the $40 billion worth of U.S. products that the Clinton administration says U.S. companies exported to Mexico last year actually made a "U-turn" and came right back here. The recent Milliken-inspired line is, "We're not trading with the Mexicans, we're trading with ourselves."
To debunk the Clinton administration export figures, Milliken got import and export data from both the U.S. and Mexican governments and put them through a mainframe computer at his "Milliken University" in South Carolina.
"They've done some very good work on the numbers," said one congressional aide close to the NAFTA debate.
One Millikenism making its way into speeches and interviews lately: The average Mexican spends $92 a year on U.S. goods, enough for "two Pepsi Colas a week."
"When I come across [information like] that, I mail that to a lot of people," Milliken said.
Paul Weyrich, chairman of the conservative Coalitions for America, a past Milliken beneficiary whose membership is divided on NAFTA, is more specific.
"He floods us with books, articles and reports," Weyrich said. "I must get three faxes a day."
NAFTA foes also like to point out that the Mexican government has spent upward of $30 million on its lobbying campaign. That information comes from a study by the Center for Public Integrity - a think tank that Milliken's money helped get off the ground.
In his fight against NAFTA, Milliken is on the opposite side of just about every other major chief executive officer and textile executive in the country - because, he said, he sees nothing less than the future of America at stake.
Like Perot, he fears the trade agreement makes it more attractive for U.S. companies to pull up stakes and move south of the border to take advantage of a cheaper labor force.
He fears that companies moving to Mexico will cost U.S. jobs, mean lower U.S. wages, and will force companies like his who want to stay in the United States to move in order to compete.
"We do know that there are about one million apparel jobs. I think most people feel that 50 percent of them are at risk if this agreement goes through - 110,000 of those jobs are in downtown Los Angeles, 40,000 are in downtown Miami and 60,000 are in New York City," Milliken said. "If we lose those kinds of jobs in those locations, we're going to see social unrest."
But at the heart of Milliken's opposition is the fear that NAFTA is one more Cold War free trade agreement that barters U.S. businesses for geopolitical gain. These agreements have chipped away at the U.S. manufacturing base and eroded the middle class, Milliken and the think tank academics argue.
"All our international bureaucracy has been perfectly willing to give away industry after industry - TV, radio, computer chips," Milliken said. "We've had no defense mechanism to defend our country economically, and to that extent I'm a protectionist."
Milliken has been skewered for his protectionist views. And some detractors paint him as a puppeteer, pulling the anti-NAFTA strings of Perot, Pat Buchanan, Choate, Rep. Hunter and the think tanks he supports.
As the vote for NAFTA nears, Milliken is manning his fax machine.
"We have a Defense Department to defend our country militarily; I think I'm fighting to protect our country economically," Milliken said. "We've got to fight for it. And if we don't fight for it, we've got a very poor prospect for the future."
by CNB